Sienna reaches for her water glass but her hand slips and the glass tips over, spilling water across the white tablecloth.
Pietro barks out a laugh loud enough to make her flinch.
“Massimo,” he says, still chuckling, “your daughters are beautiful, but it seems there’s no brain up there.”
Sienna slowly lifts her head to Pietro.
Fuck.
There’s murder in those hazel eyes. I feel it like heat against my skin.
But I barely register it because my body is already moving before my brain catches up.
The gun is in my hand.
A shot cracks through the dining area and a second later Pietro screams.
The bullet tears through his arm, blood exploding across the tablecloth, across the plates, onto Sienna. Her sisters cry out, but Sienna doesn’t say a word. She just watches me, bathed in Pietro's blood.
The idiot clutches his arm, knocking over his chair as he stumbles sideways.
Chaos erupts instantly.
Luca shoots to his feet alongside two of my guards, moving toward Pietro. I fire another shot into the air. The sound detonates through the backyard.
Everyone freezes.
“Go to him,” I say softly, “and I will put a bullet through your head.”
Silence crashes down.
Pietro is still screaming.
Blood pours between his fingers onto the marble floor beneath him.
My pulse pounds hard and steady beneath my skin.
Violence claws through me like hunger.
I want someone to test me.
One wrong move.
One. Fucking. Move.
Please.
But nobody does, damn them!
Luca stares at me with pure hatred now, but even he isn’t stupid enough to push further.
Slowly, they back away from Pietro, leaving him there crying and cursing through clenched teeth.
I slide the gun back beneath my jacket, calmly. Then I turn toward Massimo like none of this is unusual. Oddly enough, he doesn’t look angry. If anything, the old man looks impressed. But I didn’t do this for him.
No one speaks to Sienna that way. No one makes her shrink. No one makes her flinch.
Except me.
